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Senators News: November 13th

-It was a paralyzing slow news day yesterday (the Hall of Fame doesn’t interest me) until word came out that Jared Cowen was likely out for the season due to a hip injury. It’s terrible luck for Cowen and a blow to Ottawa–they will need more out of Mike Lundin than they probably expected. I don’t think the impact on Binghamton is as significant as he wasn’t originally part of the AHL plan. There is no Cowen replacement for Ottawa nor will a random FA acquisition make much difference. This isn’t to say that in a shortened season Cowen is the make-or-break factor for a Sens playoff push, just that they can’t actually fill his spot with equivilent talent and that sends ripples throughout the blueline.

-I wasn’t originally going to comment on Dave Young‘s mention of Mika Zibanejad‘s slow start, but rather than look at what Dave said I’ll just make a couple of comparisons for those wringing their hands over the young Swede’s early returns. Here are the stats of a couple of other highly touted Swedish prospects in the AHL:Mattias Tedenby (2008 1st rounder) – 8-2-1-3 with Albany and this is his third full professional season in North America (he has 101 NHL games to his credit)Anton Lander (2009 2nd rounder) – 8-0-0-0 with Oklahoma after playing most of last year in Edmonton
My point isn’t that these players are also bad, just that early returns from young players have to be taken with a grain of salt. It’s much better to focus on comments made by the coaching stuff and thus far they have been very positive.

–Stefan reports on a rumour that Mikael Wikstrand will join Frolunda in the SEL next season (there seems little reason to doubt its validity).

-The Sens are wisely reaching out to fans to try to blunt their reaction to the lockout. I’d be interested to know if other organisations are doing the same thing, as it would provide some context for the organisation’s approach.

-Here’s the weekly prospect update (for players with more than 10 games played I’ve indicated where they are in scoring; for blueliners they are compared to other defensemen on the team):